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At least once a month – usually at a Communion Service – our church lights a peace candle and prays for peace. In doing so, we join many other churches around the world who do the same.
In 1986, a group of American Christians visited Russia. After a service in a Russian Orthodox Church in Odessa, an elderly woman pushed three roubles into the hand of Blair Monie, the minister leading the party. She asked him to buy a candle and light it in his church as a symbol of peace.
When he returned home, Blair Monie bought a candle in a glass holder and placed it on the communion table in First Presbyterian Church, York, Pennsylvania. This candle is lit at every service of worship. Later that year, the church decided to buy a supply of candles and holders, inviting members of the congregation to send them to other churches they knew.
Two members of the congregation had previously been members of a United Reformed Church in England, and they sent a candle to their former church. That church decided to do likewise and now candles are being sent far and wide.
We received our candle from St Luke’s on Ninian’s Quadrant in Glenrothes.
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